153. Miles Davis / Big Fun (1974)

Listening to Miles go electric 40 years ago, critics were in a different position. They took issue with his stylistic developments, because 1974 was much different than 1954. They were too close to see that the intervening years would witness Davis' massive influence on successive generations. Today we see what happened, so we evaluate their merits on another scale. It bears mentioning that these aren't records I can listen to every day. I don't have that kind of time to invest on a daily basis. Like Bitches Brew, the music on Big Fun explores modality through orchestration and arrangement. The tracks are brimming with textures, melodic ideas, and moods. Themes are played and repeated, then recalled, then played again. The effect is haunting, like beasts looming in a fog, vanishing and reappearing. After 22 mnutes, the effect is glacial. Like it says in the liner to Coltrane's Ascension, you shouldn't turn it on without expecting to hear at least a whole side. You can't be interrupted for a few minutes without the magic being broken, and the arc is lost with just a few minutes of play time. Collaborations with Zawinul like "Recollections" or "Great Expectations" fulfill the promise, and typify what's found elsewhere throughout the record. As if you really need a curveball, Davis added sitar and tabla.

148. Fenton Robinson / Somebody Loan Me a Dime (1974)

I like this debut for Alligator a lot because Robinson's guitar and vocals combine much of what I love about Texas, Chicago, jazz, and soul all in one place. It has a pureness, a genuine flavor that is unmistakable, yet it is not adequately described by any one of those styles. It all starts with the vocals and guitar which are backed by a straight ahead band including Bill Heid and Mighty Joe Young. Robinson's voice is a deep baritone, capable of rich emotional detail while its timbre is smooth enough to imply a dimension of gentleness. This distinguishes him from the haughty, barkingly self-assured styles of singers like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf (just saying). And it's a big voice, too. They needed a microphone for the sessions but it's easy to see him singing without one. For "mikeless" cred, he even covers Big Joe Williams' "You Say You're Leaving," and to devastating effect. His unique blues guitar style is evident from the first track, "Somebody Loan Me a Dime." Robinson plays smart licks in a call-and-response style, but draws jazzy patterns from a more colorful pallet than your typical player. The tone is dirty and overdriven, without reverb, and sounds pretty much right from the wire. This is essential for fans of Chicago or Texas blues because it's good for character, and an easy like for fans of Grant Green or anyone with a penchant for soul jazz.

98. John Coltrane / Interstellar Space (1974)

This was actually recorded in 1967, but not released by Impulse! until '74, almost a decade after Coltrane's death. It's famously dense, but not impenetrable. Throughout the album, Coltrane demonstrates a litany of technical ideas by running through scales, stacking chords, and changing meters in snatches of modal improvisation. It is very experimental and obviously one of the more inaccessible works in the Coltrane canon. Interstellar Space was recorded shortly after the session that produced Stellar Regions, so many of these pieces share themes. "Saturn" is the longest piece, also the only one to lack bells in the intro. Some people latch onto "Venus" which is the closest thing to a conventional melody on the record. Rashied Ali plays like a mystic, and I often find myself listening to him more than Coltrane, whose explorations are searching but also noisy and make the ear weary. Ali's rhythms seem to accommodate any of Coltrane's fancies, or rather Coltrane is free to step in and out of them when it suits he is doing. This is huge music for 1967 that has been hotly debated, put down, or academically dissected ad nausea ever since. I'm happy that the package was expanded on CD to include the similarly minded "Leo" and "Jupiter Variation." 2013 has a lot more context for this type of musical activity than there was in 1967, and it's found a happy home with hundreds of people. That's the crime of being ahead of your time, that it takes everyone else that much lonegr to catch up. Gregg Bendian chose this album to recreate with Nels Cline (Interstellar Space Revisited), describing it in the liner as his love letter to free jazz drumming. In that regard, I can't think of a finer template. Listen to both, see where it takes you.